Karen’s Travel Blog

Before I commence this post Peter insists that I inform you, my audience that if you wish to enlarge the images you just click on them. Okay that the housekeeping finished, now on to the final chapter for this year The trip from Veere to Brugge is a total of about 120kms, and would take […]

Zeeland is located in the south western part of the Netherlands and as its name suggests is a land of the sea, being made up of islands and estuaries. We travelled through Zeeland on our journey back to our winter port in Brugge. Our first stop on this part of the journey was Oude Beigerland […]

Leaving Lemmer and Friesland behind us we took the canals, lakes and rivers southwest to Hasselt on the Zwartewater, then to Zwolle before we travelled up the IJssel to Central Holland. On our trip north to Friesland we had stopped off at Kampen on the IJssel and noted then river was only flowing at about […]

Firstly thanks to everyone for your feedback on my blog. We are certainly exploring parts of the world that most have never heard of let alone visited. Sue Neales pointed out that she needed to get out a map to see where we are, so as a nod to this feedback I have included a […]

We delayed our departure from Sixhaven by a day due to the inclement weather. Finally we we off, across the Markermeer and into the Nijkerkernauw to the old fishing town of Sparkenburg. Both these waterways are wide and shallow to they can kick up a bit of chop, even on a relatively calm day. We […]

No we did not cruise our Joie de Vivre along the Italian canals. In fact there really are no canals to speak of in Italy. Leaving our precious barge safely tucked up in Sixhaven, Amsterdam we braved the journey from Schipole airport to Naples. And yes I do mean we braved the journey. Just like […]

I know it’s taken a little time to update my blog, but the month of July was very busy, with very little downtime. We meet Margaret and Martin in Paris along with friends from the UK, Martyn and Nicola. Without a moment to catch our breath, our five days were spent exploring and shopping in […]

Our mooring in Amsterdam was at Sixhaven which is across the Noordzeekanal from Amsterdam Central station. Easy access to the city is via the walk on walk off free ferry that runs 24/7 every few minutes. I even found a respectable supermarket with a huge liquor outlet on our side of the river. (Dirks for […]

One of the joys of owning a barge is the ability to share our adventures with friends. Peter often comments that he never knew he had so many friends, but of course, as with a lot of his comments, this is very tongue in cheek. With the Covid lockdowns over the past few years not […]

Just as in 2019 we turned around leaving France and retraced our steps northward towards the Netherlands. Jo enjoyed our company and the river for 5 days leaving us at Fumay to train it south to Provence . As usual there were still many discoveries to be made. Our next stop on leaving Charleville Meziere […]